The Latest from Natasha Lomas
Ban biometric surveillance in public to safeguard rights, urge EU bodies
There have been further calls from EU institutions to outlaw biometric surveillance in public. In a joint opinion published today, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data Prote
Apple’s App Store to face scrutiny in Germany as FCO opens ‘market power’ proceeding
Germany’s competition authority, the FCO, has completed its Big Tech GAFA “bingo” card by opening a proceeding against Apple. As with similar investigations already opened this year
Perspectives on tackling Big Tech’s market power
The need for markets-focused competition watchdogs and consumer-centric privacy regulators to think outside their respective ‘legal silos’ and find creative ways to work together to tackle
UK’s ICO warns over ‘Big Data’ surveillance threat of live facial recognition in public
The UK’s chief data protection regulator has warned over reckless and inappropriate use of live facial recognition (LFR) in public places. Publishing an opinion today on the use of this biometri
Internxt gets $1M to be ‘the Coinbase of decentralized storage’
Valencia-based startup Internxt has been quietly working on an ambitious plan to make decentralized cloud storage massively accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It’s just bagged $1
On a growth tear, DuckDuckGo reveals it picked up $100M in secondary investment last year
Privacy tech continues cooking on gas. To wit: Non-tracking search engine DuckDuckGo has just revealed that it beefed up its balance sheet at the back end of last year with $100 million+ in “ma
Adtech ‘data breach’ GDPR complaint is headed to court in EU
New York-based IAB Tech Labs, a standards body for the digital advertising industry, is being taken to court in Germany by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) in a piece of privacy litigation
UK’s CMA opens market study into Apple, Google’s mobile ‘duopoly’
The U.K.’s competition watchdog will take a deep dive look into Apple and Google’s dominance of the mobile ecosystem, it said today — announcing a market study which will examine the
CJEU ruling could open big tech to more privacy litigation in Europe
A long running privacy fight between Belgium’s data protection authority and Facebook — over the latter’s use of online trackers like pixels and social plug-ins to snoop on web users
Twitter is eyeing new anti-abuse tools to give users more control over mentions
Twitter is looking at adding new features that could help users who are facing abusive situations on its platform as a result of unwanted attention pile-ons, such as when a tweet goes viral for a reas
Europe needs to back browser-level controls to fix cookie consent nightmares, says privacy group
European privacy group noyb, which recently kicked off a major campaign targeting rampant abuse of the region’s cookie consent rules, has followed up by publishing a technical proposal for an au
Google won’t end support for tracking cookies unless UK’s competition watchdog agrees
Well this is big. The U.K.’s competition regulator looks set to get an emergency brake that will allow it to stop Google ending support for third-party cookies, a technology that’s current
InfoSum outs an identity linking tool that’s exciting marketing firms like Experian
InfoSum, a startup which takes a federated approach to third-party data enrichment, has launched a new product (called InfoSum Bridge) that it says significantly expands the customer identity linking
Voice AIs are raising competition concerns, EU finds
The European Union has been digging into the competition implications of AI-powered voice assistants and other Internet of Things (IoT) connected technologies for almost a year. Today it’s put o
ProtonMail gets a slick new look, as privacy tech eyes the mainstream
End-to-end encrypted email service ProtonMail has refreshed its design, updating with a cleaner look and a more customizable user interface — including the ability to pick from a bunch of themes
Terraformation gets $30M to fight climate change with rapid reforesting
Every startup is trying to fix something, but Terraformation is tackling the only problem that must matter to all of us: climate change. This is why it’s in such a big huge hurry. Its mission &#
Google ditches pay-to-play Android search choice auction for free version after EU pressure
Google is ditching a massively unpopular auction format that underpins a choice screen it offers in the European Union, it said today. Eligible search providers will be able to freely participate. The
France fines Google $268M for adtech abuses and gets interoperability commitments
France’s competition watchdog, L’Autorité de la concurrence, has fined Google up to €220 million (~$268M) in a case related to self-preferencing within the adtech market which the watchdog
Google’s Gradient Ventures leads $8.2M Series A for Vault Platform’s misconduct reporting SaaS
Fixing workplace misconduct reporting is a mission that’s snagged London-based Vault Platform backing from Google’s AI focused fund, Gradient Ventures, which is the lead investor in an $8.
Facebook’s use of ad data triggers antitrust probes in UK and EU
Facebook is facing a fresh pair of antitrust probes in Europe. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the EU’s Competition Commission both announced formal investigations i